Maya Civilization/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Tim and Moby explore in a forest. Tim has a sword and Moby is carrying a chest. They discover a building carved with symbols. Tim cuts down the leaves blocking the entrance to the building and bats escape. TIM: Porter! fetch my book of ancient symbols! Moby holds a book titled, Ancient Symbols. He frowns and then grins mischievously. He tosses the book at Tim and hits him in the head. TIM: Ow! Let's see, sacred temple, jaguar paw, nuuh, ah, here we go: To whom it may concern. The book shows the same symbols that are on the building. Tim figures out what the symbols mean. TIM: Whosoever discovers this message, will tell the tale of the great Maya culture. Or be cursed with minor foot ailments. Take care now, The God of Maize. Huh, I sure don't want any of that. Okay, here goes. The Maya were an ancient civilization located in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, and parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, and Honduras A map shows the locations of the Mayan civilization as Tim describes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, people sometimes confuse them with the Aztecs, another Mesoamerican society. But the Maya came thousands of years before! A map shows where the Aztecs lived, which was near where the Maya were located. TIM: Their first settlements are almost 4,000 years old. And unlike the Aztecs, the Maya weren't part of a centrally-controlled empire. Their civilization was more of a loose collection of city-states, each with its own ruling family. The Mayan map shows the locations of the city-states. TIM: At the peak of the civilization between the 3rd and 10th centuries C.E., Maya city-states, or polities, were major urban centers. An image shows Mayan pyramids and people standing around a city-state. TIM:Large polities like Copan, Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul, were dominated by massive step pyramids, and huge palaces for the ruling families. The Mayan map shows step pyramids at the locations of the ruling families' palaces. TIM: Each city-state controlled surrounding farmlands and smaller towns, and it was always looking to expand its influence through military conquest. Neighboring cities were constantly at war with each other, and they didn't necessarily speak the same language. An image shows two Mayas dressed in battle gear fighting one another. TIM: But still, we look at them as one civilization because they shared a common culture. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, for one thing the Maya were the only native American society with a complete system of writing: in other words, one that could fully represent a spoken language. Maya script looks sort of like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but many of the symbols are phonetic, representing sounds instead of ideas. An image shows examples of Maya script. TIM: That means they can be combined to form spoken words, just like the letters in our alphabet. An animation shows a Mayan man speaking, with Mayan symbols in a speech bubble. TIM:But instead of just 26 letters, the Maya had hundreds of phonetic symbols. Much of what we know about their culture comes from writing that was carved into stone and wood; painted on pottery; or even written in a kind of paper book called a codex. Images show Mayan writing on stone, wood, pottery, and paper. The image of the paper enlarges into two pages of a codex. TIM: Some of the most spectacular Maya artifacts are stone columns called stelae, which depict images or rulers, along with family trees and stories of conquest. An image shows Mayan pictures on a stela or stone column. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, they were a warlike culture, but that wasn't what they were all about. As in most ancient civilizations, religion was at the center of Mayan culture. In fact, a desire to understand the gods was the driving force behind their scientific and technological advances. Step pyramids were often topped with temples dedicated to the most important gods. An image shows a large step pyramid with a temple on top. TIM: These temples sometimes doubled as astronomical observatories. Without telescopes, the Maya made detailed charts of the stars in the night sky, which they considered a story of the gods' activities. An image shows a Mayan observing the stars in the night sky from the temple at the top of a pyramid. MOBY: Beep. TIM: That's right. Many Mayan temples and pyramid complexes were constructed to align with certain constellations. What we call the Pleiades cluster was especially important. The Maya believed that their ancestors originally came from there! An image shows the Pleiades cluster glowing in the night sky. TIM: In fact, the movement of the Pleiades tied into at least one of several complex calendar systems that the Maya developed. You can check out our FYI feature for more on those! MOBY: Beep. Moby points to a wall with a series of bars, dots, and shells carved into it. TIM: Oh, those are Mayan numbers. They use a base-20 system meaning that there were 20 individual digits instead of 10. Each bar represents a 5, and each dot represents a 1, the shell represents a 0, making the Maya one of the earliest civilizations to use it. In some ways, they were more advanced than Europeans who conquered them! An image shows bars, circles, and a shell carved on a wall. These represent the digits in the base-20 system. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, since there was no central authority, the Maya civilization didn't fall suddenly like the Aztecs or the Inca. Instead, the Spanish slowly conquered individual city-states, one by one. By the end of the 17th century, the major centers of power had all fallen. An map shows the Maya civilization and its city-sates. Spanish flags replace all of the citystates one by one. TIM:But the Mayan people didn't go anywhere. They still occupy the same area of land they've lived in for thousands of years. Well, that's about all I know off the top of my head. Hope I've appeased the God of Maize. Moby comes out of the bushes dressed as the God of Maize. He is wearing a corn necklace and corn plants on his arms and head. He raises his arms and startles Tim. TIM: Agghh!Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Social Studies Transcripts